Starting Over
by redvelvetscissors
Summary: Loki stole the Tesseract during the time heist. What happens now? With him in search of the stones and trying to evade Thanos, how does the time until 'Infinity War' play out? With such a big challenge before them, the avengers may manage to stay together, but somehow things always manage to find their way back to normal. Will a new timeline change what happens in the end?
1. Chapter 1

As something of a master of disguise himself, Loki couldn't help but commend Tony Stark for his efforts. While Stark writhed on the ground, Thor poised to strike his reactor with his hammer, Loki found his vision split between two perhaps equally fascinating sights. To the left, a distinctly apathetic security guard who was, even more distinctly, Tony Stark in an astoundingly poor disguise. He edged away from the commotion before turning and hurrying away. To the right, tantalisingly close to his feet, the Tesseract, alone and unguarded.

_Almost_ disbelieving that the Avengers would be so careless, he ducked and retrieved it in one swift motion.

Blood turning once more to air, a moment of reckless magic stole him away from the scene of an admittedly unforeseen and humiliating defeat. The pulling of his power eased, finally, and Loki found himself deposited onto damp rock.

It wasn't the golden palaces and princely splendour of Asgard. The miles upon miles of rocky landscape, suffocated by blue-tinged air, thick with sulphur, didn't impress any depth of admiration onto Loki. But, to be fair, it also wasn't shackles and the wrath of Odin, so it would have to do. Casting his eyes around, he laid a reassuring hand on the Tesseract, letting its aggressive warmth guide his thoughts. Instinct flickered deep inside as he took it in both hands. He pressed, first cautiously, then firmly, against the cube, ancient magic flaring, until it began to crack. A little more and it split violently. Pieces of what he thought had been glass littered the rocks, glowing in a suspiciously un-glasslike manner. With a wide-eyed sigh, he gazed upon what he held.

The crystal itself was nothing impressive, Odin's vaults held a hundred times this in value and beauty. It was the power radiating from its dull surface, the blaze in its centre, that captivated even a god's attention. He guessed he had known what was inside the Tesseract, what power Thanos had given to him in his sceptre. He, like every good ancient being, knew of Infinity Stones, but to hold one in his hand was something else. Something incredible.

Immediately, something changed inside him. His mind raced smoothly, as if all his thoughts fell neatly into compartments, each working simultaneously. Power rippling, his muscles burned when every motion became streamlined. The misty, neglected scenery brightened. If it had been his quarters in Asgard's palace, he could not have felt more familiarity with the terrain as wonderful certainty filled him.

Seemingly, he skipped parts of the journey across the rocks. One moment, he was facing a dull trek up a cliff face, the next, at a cave entrance. Energy like nothing he had felt on Earth or Asgard thrummed in the air. It came from the stone in his hand. He knew what it did – Thanos had made himself abundantly clear – but not how it did it. His power yearned for it, though, melding with the strange pulsing of the stone.

Sooner than comforted his usually steely nerves, Loki found himself face to face with a door. A beautifully designed one, despite its underwhelming size and concealment from plain view. That compulsion returned, the stone pulling itself towards whatever was on the other side of the door. He tried to open the door, but quickly found himself inside, the stone radiating heat.

The room was hot. It shouldn't have been – poorly sealed room on cold, lonely planets did not usually invite central heating – but it was stifling, painfully so. The stone called to something nearby. Even for a god, even for a Jotun, the room's energy was dizzying. Heady with something lovely. Limitless mischief. Trouble.

With a wicked grin, he eyed the column in the middle of the room. The purple glow was otherworldly but he reached his hand into it, regardless, clenching his jaw against the burning of his skin. As he removed the orb, it cracked and crumbled around another stone. Curiosity piqued, he set his eyes on it, letting the purple light wash through the room.

The stone in his pocket retreated, its power cooling.

Loki chuckled and slipped the stone in to join its brother.

To look at, the thought that the stones contained and directed the fate of the entire universe was preposterous. In his opinion, at least. Of course, he knew not to underestimate power based on outward appearance; it was such an earthly thing to do, after all. As well, he felt the raw and unsullied energy in their cores. It pleased the mischief that danced through his blood. No, it was Thanos' pure desperation to find them that tripped Loki's understanding. What could he do with these relics of creation that he could do with nothing else?

An idea came into his mind. The potential for trouble, right in his pocket, was immeasurable. So many possibilities suddenly making themselves known, things that only the stones knew of, things that godly magic alone could not conceive of.

Smirking, he took a deliberate step and gripped the blue stone in his fist, inhaling sharply as it tugged him away from the strange planet, cold, bitter air giving way to the familiar warmth and heavy perfume of Asgard's atmosphere. Not exactly comforting, returning to the scene of many a crime, many a bout of treason. He disguised himself – no one would take a second glance towards a patrolling soldier – and made his way through the city in the direction of the palace.

There was no plan, per se. Nothing fully formed, anyway, just the glowing embers of some great mischief or subjugation, igniting.

Despite this fire, he kept his head down. He was, in his own spot-on opinion, not stupid, and he knew his welcome wasn't exactly going to be warm. Reaching out, he closed his fingers around the handle to a non-descript door. And froze.

The air crackled. Electric pricked Loki's skin while everyone around him remained unbothered, going about their daily lives. He growled, heavy-lidded eyes watching the source of the thunder. The stones flared, irritated at this new intrusion.

"Oh, shit."


	2. Chapter 2

Tony Stark couldn't believe himself sometimes. The burning in his chest subsided, replaced by a somewhat aggressive tingling as the lightening faded and Thor removed the hammer from his aching chest. He was alive, as his shaking boy proved, and yet. And yet. A thought presented itself and would not let go of its grip – how embarrassing it would have been to die because of his own malfunctioning technology.

Taking Thor's hand, extended to him, he struggled to his feet. The S.H.I.E.L.D agents surrounding them watched in restrained shock, hands folded behind their backs. They made no move to help.

Laughing with a warming grin, eyes twinkling, Thor gave Tony a pat on the arm and turned to grab his brother by the arm and take him back to Asgard before he could be taken by someone less prepared to deal with him and his _ways_.

When his hand brushed nothing but empty space, he whipped around, dropping his hammer to the floor and narrowly missing an agent's foot with it.

"Where's Loki?" his voice was gruff, his deep exasperation making itself known. Tony cursed his reactor and its ill-timed technical issues, casting his eyes around in futile hope that their fugitive might have just popped across the lobby for a coffee. With no such luck, he groaned outwardly when Thor spoke again.

"And where's the Tesseract?" Growling with frustration that Tony suspected was centuries old, Thor gripped his hammer, spinning it and sprinting for the door and took off in a blaze of coloured light.

Rubbing his temples, Tony locked eyes with the agent nearest him and shook his head. "Oh, shit."

… … …

Thor grabbed his brother by the collars of his coat and pressed him backwards into the stone walls of the palace. Chronic betrayal and fury mingled on his face. Lightening crackled beneath his skin, not mixing well with the lump in his throat.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded, pressing his brother further against the wall. He then paused, his conviction visibly shaking as he became aware of a new, strange power, intruding on his senses. Frowning, he loosened his grip on Loki's jacket and stepped back. Loki made no move to flee, rather he watched Thor with a dark eye.

"What is that?" Thor asked, searching the area around them with frantic eyes. Not meeting his brother's gaze, Loki thought for a few seconds and looked up, sighing with something akin to guilt. Or perhaps just the knowledge that he had been caught so soon.

"I don't know."

"Don't _lie_ to me, Loki," the anger returned, redoubled and sharper. Loki held his hands up in mock surrender, grimacing.

"Okay, fine," it was his turn to grab Thor's cloak and pull him into an alcove.

"It's another one of those-those things from the sceptre. Aren't they?"

Just as a thought formed on how he might slip away and finally cause some mischief, one of the stones burned in Loki's pocket. The heat screamed at him, distorting and suppressing sound and light, encasing him in his own bubble. It called out, enticed towards the lightening prickling at Thor's fingers.

And then the floodgates opened. Not a scrap of his own free will, his own power, could stop the torrent of explanation, of what the stones were, why he had one and now two, what he theorised they could do. Only one thing remained buried beneath the stone's influence – he decided the keep the 'who' of it all to himself. Titans were probably, he thought, not Thor's cup of tea.

Disbelief replaced Thor's fury, it seemed, as the lightening died away. With it went the pulsing of the power stone and Loki's compulsion to speak. He beheld Thor in stunned horror.

"Come on, we should go. I will explain these to father." Even in his eyes, Thor's conviction was not as steely as it sounded.

They marched off, hoping to enter the palace from behind, keeping to the quiet, underused streets at the edge of the city, heads dipped and eyes downcast. Occasionally, Thor muttered to himself and Loki considered running, using the stone that had brought him to the first abandoned planet to work its magic, so to speak, once more. Only when they arrived at the back gates did Thor curse himself. Two guards, clad from head to toe in the splendid colours of Odin's family, passed them. They saluted Thor and gave Loki a smiling, almost reverential nod.

Thor stopped; a puzzled look was plastered across his features. Rolling his eyes, Loki stopped too and ran his fingers over the stones.

"I told father I was bringing you back here, before leaving Earth. Everyone knows of your crimes, why did they not stop us and take you?"

Loki cast his eyes around for any more guards that might be approaching them, might be arriving to take him away to a glass-walled prison cell. Instead, they landed on a great brass pot, holding gloriously blooming orchids, shining in the daylight. Edging closer, his reflection came into focus enough for him to see the face staring back at him – the sharp features of Lady Sif.

"Dashing," he muttered to himself, grinning wickedly.

"What?" Thor joined him, staring apparently aimlessly into a sheet of brass. The realisations that Thor saw Loki's own face and that nobody else did came rushing at them both as Loki told his brother what he saw. They both thought the other might have laughed if it weren't for Thor's next idea.

"It's the stones," he said, sure of it.

"Yes," Loki said, slowly, "it appears they're manipulating my magic."

"How?"

"The power stone. It craves power. It wanted yours so much it was quite happy for me to tell you everything." Doubt, for the first time in centuries, dawned on Loki's face.

"Perhaps," Thor began, knowing all too well that he had to tread lightly, "we ought to hide them away. Figure out what to do with them. Father is wise, but I worry he will not treat this with enough caution."

"Agreed." Loki replied. The intermittent urge to tell Thor of Thanos grew stronger. His brother would not be pleased.

… … …

Humans loved to say, 'if you want something done right, do it yourself'. Many more advanced celestial beings thought this ridiculous – humans may have invented servitude, but others had perfected it and there was very little worth doing yourself if you had enough servants to do it for you. At least, that had been the idea that Thanos had gone into his quest with.

The tension in his head as he gazed down at Maw, kneeling, told him that he may have been wrong. A growl escaped his throat unbidden.

"I have come before you to bring you news of treachery," he kept his head bowed, although there was a nobility about him. Thanos waved a hand, ordering him to continue.

"The sorcerer that we entrusted with the mind stone has not returned. The humans destroyed the Chitauri army and there has been no sign of him nor that which he was to acquire." Anger struck deeply at Thanos – he struck the arm of his seat with a balled fist.

"Has there been any sign of the stones?"

Maw confirmed his concerns that Loki had betrayed them. A mirthless laugh left his mouth, ignoring Maw's continued presence, as the bitter irony hit him. He supposed to be tricked by the trickster god should have been something to be anticipated, and perhaps he had, somehow.

"Do you wish us to pursue this traitor? We will stop at nothing to- "

"No," Thanos interrupted, holding up a hand, "no. We can get to him later. Prepare a delegation to travel to earth. Immediately."


	3. Chapter 3

Steve had hoped that he might say 'Avengers, assemble' again. He had also hoped that he might get to say it under more optimistic circumstances. To say that Tony, head in hands and swearing into a stack of papers was not particularly optimistic was an understatement. He had, in fact, said it as a perfunctory command over the tower's loudspeaker system. The team, minus Thor, flocked into Tony's office, each face as downcast as the previous one.

"So, what do we know?" Clint collapsed into a desk chair, watching Steve heavily.

"Tony had a heart attack and Loki escaped with the Tesseract," Bruce, still visibly disturbed and wringing his hands, spoke with a barely contained crack in his voice. With a gentle smile, Nat pressed him into a seat and forced a mug of tea into his hands. He took a nervous sip.

"Thor thought he'd go to Asgard," Nat said, "take it there and use it for… who knows."

"Well, Thor's good," Clint cut in, standing in agitation, "and Loki hasn't come back."

"We can't just assume that –" Steve 's voice rose.

"I know," Clint replied, sighing, "but what else can we do? None of _us_ can go to Asgard, none of us can scan the goddamn galaxy for an actual god!"

Steve and Nat locked eyes, sighing and looking around in distress.

"Tony, is there any way we can find out what powered the Tesseract?" Bruce asked. Nothing. "Tony?"

Silently, Tony pressed at a device on his desk and brought up a holographic screen across the length of the table. His expression darkened, a thousand thoughts flying over his face. The screen calibrated itself before displaying a dark image, a cluster of red arrows zooming in on a blurred cylindrical object.

"What the hell is that?" Bruce whispered, stepping closer.

"Ship's just approached the atmosphere," Tony said, clearly absent as he examined the screen.

"Is it Loki?" Steve glared at the screen, the blurred edges overwhelming his senses.

"No, not Loki. Something else. Something worse."

… … …

Thanos' ship hovered on the edge of the earth's atmosphere. At the helm, he sneered meanly as a satellite sailed past them, oblivious to their presence a mere half mile away. Maw's nervous shifting was almost imperceptible, but Thanos felt his energy radiating around the cockpit. Behind, spread out on a table with pins jabbed through key locations, a holographic map guided their plans.

"Closer," Thanos commanded. The engine whirred quietly, carrying them forward. "Deploy."

In pairs, his lieutenants entered pods, strapping themselves in and tapping at the console, programming their path. With a pop, the pods were ejected into space. Thanos smiled.

He felt Maw stiffen behind him and the smile was gone. Each pod had, in the seconds he had turned away, turned to clouds of fiery wreckage, churning metal into the space around them. Foreign emotions fought for domination – shock, rage and offended humiliation were, predictably, the victors. Jumping up, he slammed his hands against the console and made to stalk for the map.

Until something gliding past the window caught his attention. The culprit, undoubtedly, of this unforeseen failure. Taunting him. A dull, human-made device. A satellite.

Emblazoned on the sides with 'Stark Industries'.

… … …

For eight months, the stones had rested in a vault beneath Asgard's palace. No disturbances. No use.

For eight months, Thor had been languishing in his father's bad books. Guilty, granted, of nothing more than exonerating his brother of apparently heinous war crimes. But guilty, in the king's eyes, nonetheless. Unsure whether to be proud or ashamed of his newfound skill for lying effortlessly, Thor had resigned himself to pinning Loki, again, against a wall and telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he was to be the exact epitome of perfection and virtue. That an evil force had taken advantage of Loki's attempt at redeeming his very nature. And this was not up for debate.

For eight months, he had been restless without release. And then a hand rested firmly on his shoulder.

"Thor." Heimdall was calm, but visibly agitated.

"Heimdall. What is it?"

"Jane has left my Sight." Thor's stomach dropped, his chest tightening. Nodding slowly, he asked Heimdall to take him to the Bifrost. As they walked, his body agitated to move faster, he tuned in to the fluttering of dread in his mind. Something waited for him, something that would bring about the harsh reminder that eight months is not long enough to escape an infinity stone. Shaking Heimdall by the hand, he felt the celestial light of the Bifrost wash over him, dropping him in a courtyard surrounded by concrete and abandoned buildings.

Shouting caught his attention. Heading cautiously in the direction of it, he rounded a corner, lost in thought, brought out of his reverie by the clattering of metal against the ground.

"Hey!" a familiar voice snapped at him, a swirl of brown hair and furious eyes spinning to meet him.

"Darcy?"

"Thor!" She greeted him with an open-mouthed grin, punching his arm, whacking him with a flat hand and hugging him in a rather confusing sequence. Breathing out his relief, he laughed.

"Where's Jane?" Suddenly remembering himself, he gripped Darcy by her shoulders and bore his eyes into hers. Clenching her jaw, she met his stare and straightened up.

"Hey, you left her! Why should I tell you where she is?"

"She left Heimdall's Sight." Darcy narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, questioningly.

"What? Oh, right, yeah. Well, she was just round there a few minutes ago," Thor hurried off as Darcy watched him, considering the possibility that he had been a god for too long and was in desperate need of a vacation.

… … …

There shouldn't have been light down there. Between slick, wet rock and humid air there ought to be nothing. Maybe fossils. Maybe bacteria or slime or dead algae.

The light was enchanting. Like a wicked, watchful gaze, it drew her in, held her attention and whispered to her deepest sensibilities. She reached out a hand, letting her fingers dance in the glow of its very edges.

It gripped her. Each muscle pulled taught. Her nerves sang out, needing and rejecting the light that nibbled at her core. Screams bounced off the walls of the cave, closing off her senses.

… … …

Her whole body jarred as her feet touched the ground again. Shaking, she frantically glanced around her, wrapping her arms around her to calm her racing heart. Very slowly, her limbs returned to normal, lungs burning and empty.

A deep voice sent her head reeling all over again. Spinning around, she watched as Thor strode towards her, face like thunder – she let out a deliriously snort – and loosed a shaky breath.

With a warm grin, Thor wrapped his arms around Jane, pulling her to him tightly. He felt her relax into him and sigh happily, the fear of her experience melting away. The Aether blazed in her blood.

The stones, deep beneath the ground, pulsed in response.

With dull motions, Loki stood from his desk, mischief stirring in his blood, to answer their call.


	4. Chapter 4

The moment he laid his hands on the stones again, Loki became aware of the painful tension his body had carried for months, the yearning it had been holding. Like an old friend, his magic rushed to greet the stones, roiling and pulling. His eyes gleamed wickedly, a brilliant grin spreading across his face. Taking the stones from their vault, he slipped them into what they now felt was their rightful home, his right pocket, and crept back along the corridor, watching the strangely compliant guards let him pass.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that Thor could return any second. His brother, though, was more of a fool than anyone thought if he placed his unwavering trust in one whose talent for trouble was without limit. Chuckling at the thought, but unsure of what he was actually going to do with his new toys, Loki emerged from the subterranean vault with as much swagger as possible, flashing a passing Lady a dashing, if slightly menacing, smile.

The stones blazed, their energy tugging in the direction of the Bifrost bridge. With intense frustration, he growled aloud and spun on his heel, heading back into the palace. He did not know where Thor had gone, but, given the slight hint of benign fascination on Heimdall's face when they had passed hours before, he suspected it might be Earth.

And he soon found out. Thor's arrival, Jane in arms, carried by his hammer rather crudely through the doors of the palace, left him little time to keep out of the way. Besides, the human girl piqued his curiosity, something powerful about her caught the stones' attention. He followed, keeping a fair distance as they approached a set of disused chambers, until Thor turned sharply back on himself and tugged his brother into the room.

Odin quickly followed.

It was as if humans awoke some primordial instinct of caution in Odin. He eyed Jane in confusion, any wisdom that usually resided on his face fleeing as he lifted her wrist and felt the Aether squirming. His face tightened. Attendants and healers hurried around the uncomfortably small room, clearly not made for nine people to work.

"It is the Aether," Odin said slowly, watching Jane curiously. His eyes never quite managed to find Thor's. "My father sealed it away long ago. Its return to the Nine Realms heralds great misfortune."

"Does she count as great misfortune?" Loki quipped, barbing Jane with a searing look.

"No, foolish boy," Odin snapped in return, "the Dark Elves seek its power. They will return, make no mistake." Absorbed in the impending fate of his kingdom, Odin was oblivious to Loki's stiffening limbs. Thor grabbed his arm and questioned him with his darting eyes. His answer came in the form of a gulp and a tightened jaw. Thor nodded his understanding.

Blinking out tears – false or real, he could not quite tell – Thor put a shake in his voice and petitioned his father to find anything that might be done for Jane. Consenting, Odin strode away, muttering to himself.

As soon as his father had left, Thor said, "what is it?"

"Its power comes from the stones. There's one here," Loki replied, eyes still wide. That same uncertainty had returned, sitting uncomfortably in his throat.

"In her?" Thor exclaimed, eyes widening massively.

"No," Loki rolled his eyes, "in the Aether. Protected by it." Thor shrugged, failing to see how what he said had been any different, and ran a hand down Jane's arm with a sad smile. It wasn't quite sympathy that Loki felt in his soul, no, it was something closer to a dampening on his wicked glee at seeing the stones take over someone else's life for a change. He would go to his grave before it was sympathy.

Minutes passed with no conversation. Normally impervious to the intricate awkwardness of humans, Loki decided it might be best to wait outside, as Thor seemed to have sunk into a terribly morose reverie. His movement seemed to wake his brother, though, and they left together, falling into silent step.

Outside, in the glow of the midday sun, it was almost peaceful. Asgardians milled around, their chatter carrying in the warm breeze, jewel-bright clothes reflecting obscene amounts of light. They were totally unaware.

"So, what now?" Loki broke the heavy silence between them. With mournful eyes, Thor shrugged with such dejection as Loki had never seen before. It disturbed him. Although not as much as the sight that met him as he turned.

Heimdall, with pained breaths, came hurtling from the direction of the Bifrost bridge, resigned terror on his face.

"What's going on?" Thor demanded, then softening his fierce face.

"The Dark Elves, the Aether has awoken them. They are coming."

Thor nodded grimly. "Return to the Bifrost, Heimdall." With a parting grimace, they turned away from each other and Thor met his brother's eye.

"We've got to get the stones away from here," Thor said, grabbing Loki by the arm and dragging him towards the back doors of the palace. "We can't let the Dark Elves take them."

Despite yanking his arm back and muttering bitterly, on that last point, Loki was in total agreement. Grumbling, he headed after Thor. This particular path led them behind a series of gardens, unused at that time of day, around to a great lake with a few couples boating on the far side. The sun struck it wonderfully, a rainbow of colours cascading off every receptive surface.

As covertly as possible, Thor pressed a small urn-like container into Loki's hands and bid him, severely, to seal the stones inside and guard them.

"I'm going after Malekith," he said.

… … …

"The girl is here," a leather-clad colonel jabbed his finger in the direction of Jane's chambers. With a restrained smile, Malekith drew his weapon from its hilt and brandished it, missing the familiar weight of it for all those years asleep. The door flew open as his soldiers ran at it. He stepped inside and chuckled at the sight.

The girl was easy to spot. Smooth and pretty – so painfully human – she stared him down with defiant eyes. Power radiated off her person, her very body resisting the thing in her blood.

"Kill her," he ordered, boredom suddenly flooding him, "and bring me the Aether."

Before the soldier tasked with the murder could take a single step, a bolt of gold struck him backwards. Frigga lifted her hands towards Malekith, wearing a challenge on her face. Reaching behind her, Jane felt for a weapon to assist. With an eye roll, Malekith lunged for Frigga, who side-stepped him easily and struck him down.

Jane pulled a decorative pole from its fittings and batted an elf with it. He fell, grunting, when another grabbed her by the waist. Incredibly determined, Frigga shot a bolt through the offending soldier and pushed Jane backwards. Just in time for Malekith to force his sword into her back, chuckling wickedly as she fell to her knees. Crying out, Jane surged forward to help her, but found her way blocked by two elves, who seized her arms and yanked them behind her.

They both fell silently, life sucked from them by a lightning bolt. Stalking into the room, Thor let another bolt fly, sending Malekith tumbling backwards into a statue, toppling with it. Chest tight, throat burning, he collapsed beside his mother, knees crunching against the stone. A strangled shout wrenched itself from his throat as he touched her arm. A single tear tracked his cheek.

… … …

Loki sat. Sat and stared at the blank walls of a burial chamber in a half state of preparation. His magic held the urn out of view, but the stones' power was still unmistakable under his skin. Eyes burning, he blinked as the door cracked open, casting the room in dull light, and Thor joined him. Sliding down the wall, Thor rubbed his face with his hands and let out a quivering breath. The silence settled heavily.

"We have to- "

"If you're going to say get the stones away from here, then don't waste your breath," Loki was spitting his words, scowling darkly.

"No," Thor admitted, shaking his head, "we have to get Jane away from here."

Silent for a moment, Loki nodded his agreement and stood. His body was crumpled and aching. As much as he wanted to smash things, to burn every last brick of the palace and the celestial ground it stood on, he had learned long ago never to doubt Heimdall's Sight.

"Svartleheim," Loki whispered, an idea forming in his mind.

"What? Are you mad?"

"I think we've had this conversation before," Loki mused, "but no. It's abandoned. And big; it's perfect."

Acquiescing, Thor instructed Loki to retrieve some armour and a sword for Jane and to meet him at the door between the great hall and the servants' stairway. Glad to have something that might assuage the unpleasantness of emotional awareness, Loki agreed and strode away.

To Jane's chambers, where she now lay awake and blinking violently, Thor hurried. Although he had plastered a sickly sweet and benign smile to his lips, she remained unconvinced, pinning him with serious glances at frequent intervals. With little explanation to her or to her attendants, he unceremoniously bundled her from the room. Outside, his apologies came flowing, unloading a rather large amount of crucial information in, reasonably, too short a time for her to comprehend. However, she approved of their trip with no small amount of confidence, pulling ahead of Thor to reach their meeting place.

Loki was waiting, complete with exaggerated foot tapping, when they arrived. Jane watched them sadly as they pried open the door that would, apparently, lead them directly to the Bifrost – noticeably dishevelled, in their own way they both had grief written across their faces.

Heimdall's secluded retreat was far colder than she had remembered. Shivering, Jane grinned at Heimdall, sharing a look of empathy and fatigue at the prospect of an outing with Asgardian princes.

"He's told you where I am to send you," Heimdall asked.

"Oh, yes," Jane replied, exhaling sharply, "never a dull moment." Despite himself, Heimdall laughed and placed a hand on the hilt of the sword, twisting it quickly and sending them into a shower of light.

It dumped them gracelessly onto dusty, empty ground.

Struggling to his feet, Thor reached out a hand to Jane. Surprised he was, then, when he saw his brother helping her up with a bright smile (conveniently, when his back for turned, Loki's hand appeared to slip quite innocuously).

"Oops," he muttered as he felt her eyes burn into him.

"Right," Jane said, assertively, "How do we get this, this Aether out of me?" Thor's face crumpled into fierce concentration. Loki and Jane locked eyes and rolled them together as it dawned on them both that nobody had a real plan. It briefly occurred to Thor that he might be able to extract it himself but discarded it when the fear that he might kill Jane took over. Tricking Malekith into doing it seemed the best of a bad bunch. Thor grimaced.

"I can do it," sighing, Loki pursed his lips and indicated the stones in his pocket. "They seem to call to each other."

Thor nodded slowly. It seemed like madness, but he knew it was best not to argue the point. Instead, he consented and called lightning to his hammer, readying to face the onslaught of Elves that poured from the ships above them. War cries in forgotten languages echoed across the barren landscape, dust kicked up in dense walls. It was time.

For an advanced, if misguided, race of powerful beings, the Dark Elves had an unfortunate penchant for good, old-fashioned steel and iron. Lightning and flashes of emerald light swept through their ranks, shattering each formation in turn. They stopped coming after a while, showing up Malekith's arrogance for all to see – foot soldiers were not match for gods.

From his concealed place of observation, he considered that the human woman was not a bad aim with a sword, but frantic in battle. With a grim smile, he motioned to the Kursed, who, staring straight ahead, followed him silently. Enough with this nonsense.

Growling low, they found themselves face to face with Thor more immediately than seemed possible. He cast a withering glance at his brother and, flicking his eyes towards Jane, gave his instructions. Turning back, he lifted his hammer, relishing the crackle in the air as lightning filled it, and struck it down. Heat rippled over the ground, ripping up mud and lonely chunks of flora, spraying into Malekith's face. Evidently displeased, he charged forward, leaping at Thor with surprising agility. Deflecting the blow, Thor caught Malekith with his foot, flipping over his head and kicking out his feet. The Kursed roared viciously.

Jane and Loki tried to keep their attention away from the fighting. Letting the power stone take hold of his abilities, Loki reached out to Jane, through her, with his magic. Tendrils wrapped her arms, rooting her to the spot. Her breathing heightened to panic but she set her face into stern resolution.

He reached deeper. It seemed impossible in that moment that anything might limit his power, with the supposed exception of the burning starting in his head. Distantly, Jane screamed, but it wasn't close. It couldn't be. No power this incredible, this delicious, could cause that kind of fear.

Power racing, screaming, in his blood, Loki never doubted the integrity of his mind against the stones.

That was a mistake. As he felt the pop of the Aether leaving Jane's body – leaving him feeling somewhat anti-climactic given the magnitude of the situation – realisation dawned on him that the stones' power was not receding. The pulsing red clouds burned away, scattering scorching heat into the air around it, leaving a vacuum of horrible cold around it. There, in the centre of the emptiness, another stone waited.

Unlike its sisters, cool and reserved, fiery and hot, it throbbed with no wild energy. No desperation found Loki's senses as he took it in his hand and admired it, suddenly alone. It hissed at him, whispered in his ear in a foreign voice and language. It shouldn't have made any sense – the words were like nothing that existed that he knew of. There should have been war; bloody, raging, _real_ war, all around. There should be a human body, Aether-less and normal. There should be elves, retreating.

There was nothing.

Closing his eyes, Loki slipped the stone into his pocket, where it hushed its whispers and buzzed in line with the others' energies. Calm and serenity vanished, collapsing as the world as he knew it returned. Svartleheim, dusty and grey, surrounded them once more, Thor clutching Jane as the elvish army dissolved.

Exhaling sharply, Jane pried herself out of Thor's arms and staggered forward, mouth agape.

"Is it… is it over?"

"Yes," Thor said, his deep voice soothing and smooth.

"I should, uh, I should get back." Glancing around, she couldn't seem to pin her eyes on one spot, totally lost as to where she might go to 'get back'. Thor agreed and bid her wait with his hammer beside her. He took Loki aside, gripping his arm.

"I'm going back to Earth with Jane for a while. What are you going to do with the stones?"

Loki shook his head. "I can't go back to Asgard."

"No, that's probably for the best." They stood in silence for a few moments, then Thor screwed up his face in confusion. "You need to tell me where they came from."

Dread, pure and unadulterated, jabbed at Loki's stomach. In the deepest recesses of his mind he knew this moment had been coming, but he had rather hoped to avoid it altogether. Sighing and running a hand over his hair, preparing for Thor's anticipated assault, he began to confess. The sceptre, the Tesseract, the Mad Titan and a barren planet that yielded untold power.

A look fell over Thor that had never shown itself before. A curious mix of anger, confusion and the acceptance of some future fate that his brother was bound to drop him in. But the rage didn't come. The fury melted away to something kinder. Now _that_ was sympathy. Even if he didn't know, Thor suddenly understood, with painful clarity, exactly what his brother was running from.

"Come with us, brother," Thor said, hoping that the phone Jane had given him still worked adequately. "I know of somewhere we can go."

"Where?" he regretted it as soon as he'd asked the question. The concern on Thor's face withdrew, giving way to a certain mischief of his own. "Really?"

Thor grinned brilliantly.

"Do try not to provoke Banner again, won't you?"


	5. Chapter 5

Anger broiled in Thanos' every fibre. For a week, the ship's computers had been working in overdrive, searching for anything they could dig up on 'Stark Industries'. This had led his purposeful gaze through a patchwork of news and security footage, a poor imitation of journalistic writing about his life, family and work and the brilliant finale that was his sorcerer's spectacular failure. He had seen a young, rage-filled man fly his ridiculous – if admittedly impressive given Earth's resources – suit; a soft man with his equally soft woman. A look of disdain spread across Thanos' face. Grainy images of missiles and warships flashed across his screens, eventually being replaced by machines of peace and global safety. Intense anger flared in his breast as he scanned a picture of the very same missile that had halted his mission.

His hand hovered over the controls. Four humans, a god and something in between formed a circle, seemingly hopeless against the onslaught of Chitauri and, at the centre, the fool who dared to cross a Titan.

Turning to Maw, Thanos waited for him to bow at his feet. "The humans can wait."

"As you wish. What about the sorcerer?" Maw's head kept low to abate his master's anger.

"Pay him no mind." Without waiting too long for further instruction, Maw dipped away.

Returning to the panel, he brought up every interplanetary database he could and searched for Loki Odinson. Boring. Dull. Predictable. Inevitable.

Then something caught his eye. More security footage from his ill-fated attempt to conquer a planet of largely defenceless humans – likely a throwaway comment, but it held so much potential. '_The rightful king of Jotunheim'_. Now, that was interesting.

… … …

Taking apart a suit took almost as long as putting it together. Months had passed uneventfully since he first began to dissemble each of the hundreds of suits he had built without purpose. With concentration that only came from trying to forget something else, Tony took a blowtorch to the joints of the final suit and melted the seals, letting the metal parts fall to the floor with a hollow clang. The noise rattled around the snug workshop and panic filled his chest. Closing his eyes, he sucked in a breath and rested his shaking hands on the bench. The door clicked gently and swung open, revealing Pepper's smiling face.

"Okay?" she said carefully, running a hand down Tony's back. A sad smile, lacking in some of that twinkle, gave her all the answers she needed. He squeezed her hand.

"Thank you," she eyed the impossible mess spread around the room and sighed, disbelieving. He nodded, understanding. "I'm not asking you to…"

"Yeah, I know," he said, beginning to pack away the tools, "but, uh, maybe it's for the best if I, you know, dial it back a little." The shaking had started to subside, but he still clenched his fists tightly. Pepper, smiling, reached for his hands and took them in hers, swaying side to side in what might have been an amateur waltz if there had been any music playing. And they hadn't been surrounded by dismembered suits. She pecked his cheek gently.

"Any word from Thor?" She hadn't wanted to ask, but the tension on Tony's face was palpable.

"No. But no word from Reindeer Games, either, so," he shrugged and turned back to his work. Shaking her head, Pepper left the workshop and, stopping for a glass of wine from the fridge, stepped outside onto the balcony. The cool air had just begun to sweep over her face, soothing her soul, when a pocket of air popped loudly behind her. Whether it was fear or exasperation that motivated her to turn quickly and call her Krav Maga to mind, she would never be sure. Exasperation most certainly won out, however, when she locked eyes with Thor, tired and wild-haired, with his similarly bedraggled brother. Beside them, a woman who looked distinctly less baffled than she ought to, thanked myriad gods that she was back on Earth.

The sight of Loki once again in the tower filled her with dread. Before she could register that he wasn't, in fact, making any move to cause trouble, she strode to them and dealt him a heavy blow across the jaw, leaving without another look to fetch Tony from his workshop.

Jane let out a bark out laughter, burying her face in her hands. Thor, too, laughed but managed to restrain himself. Loki grumbled to himself.

With heavy eyes and sallow skin, Tony finally emerged from the workshop. There was very little that caused him anything other than resignation and emotional battering after everything, but two gods and a woman in his apartment seemed to do the trick. Heart pounding, he winced as the adrenalin flooded his body, screaming at him to run. His chest tightened.

Pulling in a breath, he stalked across the room and through a set of double doors, head down in weighty silence.

Ignoring the other two intruders, Jane grabbed Thor's arm and dragged him to the side.

"Why would you bring him back here? It took Tony months to get over- "Thor closed his eyes and held up his hands, nodding in agreement.

"Miss Potts, I know. Please, just let me explain the situation to him and he'll understand why we came." Relenting, she indicated a door behind them for Thor to follow Tony and told him to _please_ call her Pepper. Suddenly desperate to retreat to her rooms, she ordered that Loki and Jane remain where they were.

"Do you know," Loki said as she turned to leave, "I do believe Jane would like to copy your example."

"Let her," Pepper snapped.

… … …

Tony leant over a desk, breaths heavy and eyes wide. Any delusions he had held about Thor's unshakeable sense of right disintegrated. Until, that is, Thor appeared in the doorway, reverting to his gentle expressions and brilliant smiles. The shaking subsided, but the reluctance to let Thor near remained.

"Stark, I just- "

"Stop," he said, quickly rounded the desk, "just stop."

Thor rubbed his face with his hands. "He can't stay on Asgard."

"Why does he have to be _here_?" Tony's voice was strained and hoarse.

"Inside the Tesseract- "interrupted with more protestations of _stop_, he changed tact. "What do you know of infinity stones?"

"Nothing. You've got to be making that up, surely."

"The infinity stones were formed at the very beginning of the universe – six of them. They are infinitely powerful. There was one inside the Tesseract," he paused as Tony cringed, "and Loki has found two more."

"But why bring him here?" straightening up, Tony grew visibly frustrated.

"He can't control them; took me long enough to get him to admit it. They call to each other as if they want to be together." The expression on Tony's face was one of slowly melting scepticism. Lips pursed, he nodded at Thor to continue.

"There's something else."

"Something bad and altogether world-ending, I assume?"

"Yes," Thor sighed deeply, visibly reluctant to keep going, "there may have been one inside the sceptre. He was given it by someone called Thanos. Apparently, his MO is 'bringing balance to the universe'. I dread to imagine what he means by that." He also dreaded to imagine that Loki might know what he meant by that but was electing to keep it quiet Pushing that thought away, he turned back to Tony.

"And this 'Thanos', he wants to find all the stones. For what?"

"We don't know."

"Forgive me for stating the obvious, but how do we know your brother isn't out to find them all?"

Without much of a thought for what he _had_ been expecting, Thor knew he hadn't been expecting this much of a grilling. "I can't be certain," he confessed, "but I'm fairly sure he's a bit out of his depth here. He's the god of mischief, not universal death and destruction, after all." He laughed, but Tony's face sucked all humour from him.

"Okay. What's the plan, then?"

"I think our only hope is to find the ones that we do know about and hide them," Thor replied, wringing his hands. This much uncertainty was not something, in all his centuries, he had known, and it sat like a stone in his stomach. Tony nodded.

"Sure. I'm going to get a hold of S.H.I.E.L.D and find out where they've got that spectre," he set her shoulders back and left, leaving Thor with shaking breath and a lack of direction.

In the room where they had arrived, he returned to find Loki and Jane sat down, on opposite ends of a large leather couch, scowling periodically at one another. The exhaustion in his brain brought his thoughts to Loki and Sif as children, watching each other in the same way, and he let out a fond laugh. It was only met with stony glares in the present scenario.

He took Jane's hand, noticing at the same time that Loki bore two, near-identical red marks on his jawline. Handprints, he might so bold as to guess.

Tony returned in an unnervingly short amount of time, unable to stay still.

"I just got off the phone with S.H.I.E.L.D," Tony announced to the room, "they don't have it."

"How can they have lost a magic spectre?" Jane exclaimed, briefly wondering how her life had taken such a ridiculous turn. Thor and Tony locked eyes, but only managed a baffled shrug as an answer.

After three painful minutes of silence, Tony said what they had all be thinking.

"Don't tell Rogers I'm saying this, but it might be time to assemble the Avengers, so to speak."

Agreeing, Thor set about installing his brother on the top floor of the tower. Wisely, he made no move to remove the stones from him but cast an ancient ward around the room. He had just to hope it would hope temporarily.

Downstairs, the conversations with Clint and Banner went about the same, except Banner had needed a little more, let's say, persuasion, than had a professional marksman. Despite the exhaustion in every cell, Tony ploughed on, only to receive no answer from Natasha or Steve. He tried again, cursing their collective determination to live their own lives, and then tried twice more. By the sixth time, the dial tone caused a bone deep irritation, so he rose and shook out his aching legs.

Thoughts of sleep finally came to him. Pouring the rest of his drink down his throat, he rubbed his face and shut down the non-essential tech systems for the night. JARVIS' voice always calmed him, so he listened absent-mindedly as he jabbed at buttons.

As he climbed the stairs, his phone vibrated against his leg.

"Tony," Natasha huffed on the other end, "we'll call you back." The sound of gunfire echoed in the background. "We're kinda in the middle of something."


	6. Chapter 6

The days since Natasha had hung up on Tony Stark had flown by in a blur. Resisting the urge to lean against the wall in spite of her aching muscles, she waited outside a non-descript chamber in a similarly clinical building in Washington, still and focused. People bustled past her – it seemed even talk of nuclear war could turn dull if it were dressed in a suit. Every few moments, her thoughts rebelled against all her years of training and wandered to Steve and Sam, from whom she hadn't turned a word since they had disappeared after Bucky Barnes. She considered him carefully, uncomfortably conflicted between the ruthlessness she had sensed from a mile away and the softness that Steve insisted remained.

A door clicked open to her left.

"Agent Natasha Romanoff," a sullen-faced usher held the door for her, nodding curtly as she passed him. The smell of commercial disinfectant and foul plastic watercoolers made her jaw tense, even more so than being led into a wide chamber, facing down S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" The bailiff clearly had better places to be – the boredom he wore like a mask painfully obvious.

"I do."

The committee general launched into a diplomatically restrained tirade concerning Steve's whereabouts, the threats they had created and the glaring holes in national security that, in Natasha's opinion, were rather more HYDRA's responsibility than hers. She told him as much.

"Agent," interrupted a stern, thin-faced man, "you should know that there are some on this committee who feel, given your service record, both for this country and against it, that you belong in a penitentiary, not mouthing off on Capitol Hill."

Natasha well understood the gravity of her situation, but she could not help giving a small smile. Squaring her shoulders, she told him that would not happen. That they were all needed, desperately and perhaps now more than ever, although she was careful to leave out the mounting number of times that Tony Stark had called her. Without another word, she allowed the committee general a curt nod and strode away. The stunned silence brought her an amazing sense of satisfaction.

Her phone started up again. In the old days, secret agents weren't in the habit of carrying phones – too traceable – but the world had an annoying tendency to change, and now it never left her person.

Mental exhaustion was not something that she enjoyed, but something that she knew well. She'd fought it, fought it tooth and nail and had largely been successful but, when she heard the short, sharp buzzing of her phone, the thought of having to work with Tony Stark again brought that exhaustion flooding back. It wasn't, she mused, that she thought he was anything less than a hero, intent on self-doubt and killing himself to save the world. It was that danger seemed to follow him – not your run-of-the-mill danger, spies, espionage, that sort of thing, that she was well used to. The sort of danger that came from space. And had gilded horns.

She finally moved to answer it. A joyful smile came to her lips when she saw Bruce Banner's anxious face pop up on the screen (the photos had been Clint's idea; he had one of her on a carousel). She gladly answered it.

"Bruce?"

"Nat, you and Rogers have gotta get back to the tower." It wasn't unusual to hear his voice crack – he had every right to be a nervous man – but that uncertainty was new.

"Why, what's up? Why has Tony been calling us?"

"Thor's back; and he's brought someone with him."

… … …

Well, that had been a bust. Walkman in hand, Peter Quill had been innocently – perhaps the wrong word, but not _explicitly_ doing anything wrong – busting a move across the barren fields of Morag, looking fabulous, if he may say so himself. Cold and wholly unwelcoming, the least the godforsaken planet might have done is yield him something worth the effort. The orb, perhaps. But no, nothing but an admittedly fascinating selection of rocks and a slight tickle in the back of his throat. These were his paltry souvenirs as he boarded his ship, hacking at controls as he took off into space once again. He muttered to himself, cursing wildly.

On Earth, he had known many that said they would never grow bored of deep space. Infinitely beautiful star systems and nebula, endless planets to explore – who would ever want to give that up? What most full-blooded humans – particularly those from Missouri – didn't realise was that deep space was _fucking huge_. At least, that was Quill's take on it as his ship sped recklessly past an unfamiliar star system. He continued in this fashion for close to a day, until he came across something that piqued his waning interest.

Changing course, he hurtled towards the planet's surface. All around him, towering buildings that, while remotely earth-like, were somehow _different_. All darkness and burnished gold starkly contrasted with the bright sky.

Setting the ship down on a small, hopefully abandoned piece of land, he asked his ship to run recon.

"Planet: Hala. Star system: Pama system. Inhabitants: Kree and Cotati. Threat level: medium to moderate."

He liked those odds. Medium to moderate translated, roughly, of course, to a long night of mischief on his part. Stepping out and looking around, he was struck by the freshness of the air and the glaring _shininess _of everything. They weren't the most eloquent of thoughts, but they came quick and unbidden.

Wandering down the alley that appeared to lead into a city, he felt the unfathomable urge to cling to the walls as he moved. At the end, a group of blue-skinned men spoke in hushed tones, something bulky and metallic being passed between them. Quill kept walking, drawn helplessly by the potential for trouble.

He froze when another of them rounded the corner, this one clothes in armour, gun on his hip. The conspirators scattered, propping the device against the wall, but sadly not quickly enough. He spoke harshly to the group, spittle flying from his lips. From where he had ducked into a doorway, Quill could make out very little of what they said; only the guard's name came out in fearful tones as he ushered them away: _Yon-Rogg._

When the sounds of receding footsteps faded to silence, Quill emerged from his hiding place.

With very little thought, Quill grabbed the abandoned device and looked it over hurriedly. Until the guard returned, uncontrolled anger rolling off his tongue.

"Who goes there? Stop!" he would never admit it to another living soul, but his assailant was far larger and probably better trained than him. Turning on his heel, Quill ran through the immaculately laid out streets, back to his ship. Tossing the device onto an unused chair, he took off without entering any co-ordinates or attempting to adjust the speed for the planet's atmosphere, which made for a rather bumpy exit. Shots flew past his window, one puncturing the glass. Cursing loudly, he flipped a few switches and sent full power to the engines, which roared in protest. He also returned a few shots for good measure.

The sleek ships of the planet's guard were fast but his old faithful was faster. He dodged their shots as if it were instinct – which, at this point, it was – relishing with glee in the dazzling flips and turns he performed as they gave chase. He doubled back, wheeling in the atmosphere, and it was beyond too late for them to catch up.

The device rattled as he left the atmosphere, the whole ship bumping and rattling his head. Familiar adrenaline, fresh and surging, was his reward as he left Hala behind. Setting the ship to cruise, he stood and took the device – which appeared to be a weapon – in his hand and examined it closely. Fascinating and a little enchanting, it ticked all his boxes for a successful trip.

He smiled, jabbing in some co-ordinates, finally, into the console.

To Xandar it was, then.


	7. Chapter 7

Quill felt someone watching him. Truth be told, he had not felt truly alone since departing Morag, although the feeling subsided momentarily on Hala, amongst the Kree. Slipping unnoticed through the densely packed streets of Xandar, he stopped every so often to glance behind him. Naturally, no one identified themselves, but still the feeling persisted. When he arrived at the main boulevard – it reminded him of the one time he had visited Los Angeles and Hollywood Boulevard, although this one on Xandar, he was sure, had fewer crooks – he lost himself in the crowd and the feeling passed.

Then it came flooding back.

The man grabbed Quill by the throat, slamming him against a wall and pressing hard on his windpipe. Quill recognised them instantly. Spluttering, he thrashed against the grip, cursing him wildly. He almost succeeded in prising the man's fingers from his neck when a heavy set of cuffs were clamped onto his wrists. Gloating immensely, the man plucked the Kree weapon from his hands and examined it. It was clear he intended to keep it.

Quill fought desperately against the restraints, intent on not being the _victim_ of theft for once. In vain, however.

With a barking voice, the man ordered two lieutenants to find his ship and search it while he, himself, had a little too much fun searching Quill. All the while, a hateful sneer rested on his face. Against every instinct to fight dirty, Quill remained still.

His lieutenants returned. Empty-handed and with identical looks of fury, they released Quill's hands from the cuffs – he suspected, extremely begrudgingly – and waited in silence at his side. Flicking his eyes between the three men, Quill pursed his lips and muttered "Well, this is awkward."

"Quiet." One of the lieutenants turned and said, "he doesn't have it. I am sure of it."

The captain nodded slowly, hands propping up his chin. He gave Quill a dirty look, although a marked improvement on the one he wore previously, and left as soon as he had come.

Baffled and with more than a few bruises on his throat, Quill shook himself off, sending a quiet string of insults after them. Overcome with the sudden heat, he made his way to the nearest of the brilliant lakes that marked Xandar's capital and let the breeze over the water cool his face. Now that his visit was pointless, he may as well enjoy Xandar for all its heady delights.

If not for the persistent presence of intergalactic criminals, Xandar might have been a truly beautiful place. He leaned against a rail, staring into the lake – they adorned the city at regular intervals - and took in the greenery. The leaves curled slightly in the sun that washed his skin, warming him in a natural way that was all too rare on a ship.

Muscles relaxed, a sense of calm overtook him. His eyes almost fluttered shut when, for the second time in the past fifteen minutes, his luck ran out.

A foot connected with his ankle and batted it out from underneath him. Swearing colourfully, he flipped onto his back and grabbed at whatever was assailing him, hoping it wasn't Yondu's men again. He caught a flash of green and red, long hair brushing against his face. Snatching, he caught a handful of it and yanked the attached head backwards. Its owner growled furiously at him and socked him in the gut, hard enough for him to release her hair and sprawl across the concrete.

"Where is the orb, thief?" she demanded, a strange combination of purring and grittiness layered in her voice.

"What?" he choked, struggling to regain his composure. "What is with everyone today – I don't have it!" he punctuated each word with a gentle hand gesture.

"So, you're a liar as well as a thief," she said, already moving to attack him again.

She was, evidently, going to take a bit more convincing.

… … …

Another ship approached Morag. Larger and more advanced than the other, it hovered behind the ship that blocked its direct path to the ground. Its occupants watched curiously as a small pod approached the other craft and slotted neatly into a landing bay.

In his chair, Thanos smiled. A sickly, unnatural smile that spoke of his barely contained fury and the formation of a new idea. The sorcerer may have tricked him, and some lowly thief may have taken the power stone from his reach, but it seemed he was not the only one looking for the stone. This was worth the risk.

With Maw at his heel, he sank into a pod and jettisoned it in the direction of the smaller ship.

"Open the doors," he told Maw, who dutifully tapped into the control panel remotely and cleared them a path onto the ship. Silently, they landed in an unattended bay and disembarked, a throaty chuckle the only noise either dared to make.

The ship itself was old, rundown and in rather desperate need of repair. Thanos regarded the main walkway with disgust as they made their way into the cockpit, where they were confronted by three men, kneeling before a blue-skinned man with an expression of pure rage.

"He's hiding it somewhere, he has to be," the man spat, waving his hands. "He-" looking up, he noticed Thanos and Maw in the doorway, watching him intently. For a few seconds, they only stared at each other.

"Yondu Udonta," Thanos said.

"Who are you?"

"Who I am is of no importance. Yet. You are looking for the power stone." Yondu swore he felt a question in there somewhere.

"The what? No, don't know what you're on about. We're looking for the orb, not that it's any of your business. My son was tasked with stealing it, but he never returned. My men are certain that he did not take it from here today." Sensing the insurrection rippling off him, Thanos stepped closer, letting Yondu see his full height. Without needing instruction, Maw scanned the ship for any signs of the stone's presence but found nothing.

"My business is everything. If you are so certain that your son does not have it, have you any idea who does?"

"Afraid not. Although," Yondu considered his words carefully, "my men did happen to see your assassin hanging around, watchin' my boy."

"Interesting. So, Ronan, too, is looking for the stone." He paused and looked around, smiling coldly at each of the kneeling men. "Thank you for your time, gentlemen."

He said nothing as they returned to their pod and docked in their ship. Nothing as he sat down, stroking his chin in thought. He broke the silence with a rumbling voice.

"They will not find the stone. Peter Quill is the first being to have visited Morag in quite some time. Loki Odinson took it." Rage rippled off Thanos in overwhelming waves. For the first time in his servitude, Maw was tempted to recoil.

"What can I do to right this wrong?" Maw's sycophantic obedience returned with a flourish.

"There are now five stone on earth. The humans are concentrating them for us. Set our course for Earth."

Maw bowed deeply. As an afterthought, Thanos smiled and said, "But we have a stop to make first."

… … …

"You really don't have it, do you?" she had let up her assaults eventually, allowing Quill all of ten seconds to catch his breath. He shook his head insistently, stepping back from her when she moved.

"No," he puffed, "I went there to steal but it was gone." He decided to leave out the part about the Kree on the assumption that this woman would have some past strife with them. Most people did, if truth be told.

Gamora's face lightened. Nodding slowly, she held her hands up as a peace offering.

"Well, then I need to find out who did. I have a buyer for it." Quill bristled but said nothing. There was that feeling of being watched again. It wasn't unfamiliar to any outlaw, certainly not to them, but it remained unnerving however much one experienced it.

For years beyond that day, neither Gamora or Quill would truly know whether they ought to have been afraid or not.

"Hey, why'd'ya stop fighting, it was just getting interesting!" Gamora quickly released Quill's arm and spun around, coming face to face with what, to her fight-weary eyes, appeared to be a talking racoon and a disturbingly human-like tree. The racoon wore a blaster at his side and a look of disinterest on his face.

"Excuse me?" Gamora demanded.

"Your fight. Most interesting thing happening here today, watching this idiot get his ass kicked."

"Hey," Quill tried to defend himself, but the sight of this racoon was too much.

"Now, now, no offense meant. Well, okay, some offense. But hey, gotta have some entertainment." With a wink, he ran for Quill's knees, causing them to buckle beneath him. Crying out in anger, Quill gripped the racoon by the scruff of his neck, only to find branches curling around his arms, prying them apart.

"I am Groot," the tree – Groot, apparently – said, in a way that seemed to indicate mocking.

Escaping Quill's grip, the racoon let out a shout of laughter and barrelled into Gamora, knocking her sideways. Hitting the ground with a thick thud, she hopped back onto her feet and slashed her blade at her assailant. Rocket sensed the fight ought to end while still in jest, but his thoughts were interrupted by a heavy hand wrestling his arms behind his back. Looking around, he saw Quill, Gamora and Groot all subjected to the same fate.

Great.

… … …

"Kyln prison. Goddamn perfect," Quill muttered, pacing about what was less a cell, more a huge room full of the galaxy's most wanted criminals. As they moved, inmates sneered at Gamora, a few screaming threats. One particularly bold man bared razor-sharp teeth at them. He vaguely wondered what she had done but thought better than to ask. By the time he had stopped indulging in prideful thoughts of his own restraint, they had entered a quieter part of the prison.

It was too quiet. In a place where space was limited, there should not have been this much empty space.

A cough behind them told them they were not alone. The air thickened.

"Gamora." The voice was deep and loaded with dulled emotion. Gamora stayed silent while the rest watched her closely.

A hulking figure, far larger than anything Quill had seen before, stepped out from a cluster of shadows. His skin was smooth and almost grey, decorated with intricate sets of what they assumed were tattoos. His heavy brow furrowed in steady anger.

Then he moved. With speed Quill thought impossible for a being of his size, Drax threw himself at Gamora, pinning her against a wall. If the look of murder hadn't been so apparent, Quill might have laughed at the turn around from his own first encounter with Gamora that morning.

"Woah, woah, big guy," Rocket said, moving to pull him away. Drax batted him away as if he were nothing, returning his focus to his prize for patience.

"Her father killed my people. Her master killed my wife. My daughter."

"I am Groot," Groot said gently – second students of this particular Asgardian elective would be able to translate: she didn't do it. Her crime was merely association.

"She has killed many others," Drax countered, apparently able to understand. "She is Ronan's weapon."

"I have betrayed Ronan," she said quickly, fighting out of his grip. He let her go.

"Lies."

"No," she continued, "I meant to steal the orb and sell it to a third-party buyer. But it wasn't there."

"If you cannot prove to me that you betray my family's killer then you are my family's killer."

"Hey, hey," Quill tried his best to come across as soothing, but it had never been his strong suit, "she's telling the truth. I also went to try and find it, but it was gone."

Drax hesitated. With an almighty sigh, he backed away, no less furious in expression but visibly less tense. Gamora released a breath and nodded her thanks to Quill. The hardness in her eyes warned him against asking any questions.

A taunting voice met their ears. "C'mon, Drax. You're just going to let her get away with it?"

Anger flared inside him. Doubling back, he pulled Gamora into what, by Quill's count, was at least her third fight of the day. There was more ferocity here, though, from both parties. Cheers and curses echoed around the room, baying for blood. Most people didn't seem to care whose.

A good deal of it covered both of their faces before the four Nova Corps soldiers on duty in their area deigned to step in. At this very same moment, Rocket tapped at Quill's leg.

"Hey, let's skip this joint."

"We can't leave them here, they'll kill each other," he hissed back, although he followed Rocket's lead to back away towards an abandoned corner of the room.

"Sure we can." Well, the racoon had a point.

"How are we going to do that, exactly?" To Quill's eye, there were no conveniently marked exits – this was a prison, after all – or weak spots in the walls. Only solid iron behind them and warring criminals in front, can't go around them, can't go over them and all that.

The walls reconfigured themselves so suddenly and so silently that Quill was sure he was hallucinating. Steel bars melted away, taking on the slightly blurred shape of a perfectly sized exit.

"Now, you don't see that every day." Rocket was just as stunned as the others, but he had an image to maintain. After a brief discussion on the potential pitfalls of going through – 'we might get vaporised' being the main objection – they took a final glance in the soldiers' direction and bid Gamora luck with her fight, stepping through into the blinding light of the setting sun.

"How the…" Quill trailed off, looking frantically around him for any sign of what might have freed them. He briefly considered that the tree or the racoon might have magic powers, but that was a stretch even for his imagination.

"You are welcome." The voice that greeted them was deep and smooth, a smile shining through even if none existed on the face to whom it belonged. Quill had never seen a Titan before, and the sheer size of him struck him dumb.

"I am Thanos," he said, slowly and with so much tenderness.

"Okay, and what do you want with us?" Quill watched Thanos carefully, observing his considered movements.

"I want your help," his expression changed to one of deep thoughtfulness. "I sought to buy the orb from Gamora." Even the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. To _buy_ an infinity stone sullied everything he held dear.

Quill held up his hands defensively, but Thanos reassured him.

"Rest assured, I know that you are not in possession of it. But I believe I know who is. Help me, help Gamora."

"Why would we want to help her?" Rocket cut in, his only solid memories of her ones of fighting, lots of kicking and good deal of chatter that she was an assassin.

"Very well," Thanos conceded, "help me, help yourselves. I will use the orb to bring balance and peace to a disturbed planet. That is all I seek, to do peacefully what others have done with war. After that, you may have whatever you desire most." His smile was almost enchanting, but Quill's reservations remained.

"We work alone," he said, "if we help you, we do it ourselves."

"Naturally."

"Then, Mr Tough Guy, I think we have an agreement."

… … …

The sun had never felt better on Gamora's skin. She grabbed Drax by the hand and pulled him around a corner, hiding them from view of any particularly keen bounty hunters or suchlike. Energy surged through her in the afternoon heat, her shoulders losing their tension for the first time in months.

It didn't stay away long, however. Lifting her head to the sky, she watched as, high above the city, a small, battered ship was engulfed by another, far more familiar one. Batting Drax's arm, she drew his attention to it, horror spreading over her face.

"What have they done?" she whispered as her father's ship fled the atmosphere.


	8. Chapter 8

Vows were held sacred on Asgard. They were unbreakable assurances of aid or favour and one who broke a vow was the utmost of despicable. Loki had never liked this concept – his exceptional talent for lying rather set him up to fail in this regard. He was the trickster god, after all. So, it came as no surprise to him when he found his most recent vow, one he had made to himself, in pieces – 'I will never again set foot in the Avengers tower'.

He had only transformed into Cap once – the righteousness was too much to pass up on – and only thought of enslaving small portions of humanity a few times. He was, by his own admittedly dubious standards, practically a saint.

Distrust still lurked behind Tony's eyes, even after all these months of impeccable behaviour.

But, right now, he was alone.

The stones still held fast in their newfound home – the inner pockets of his coat – and glowed with unused potential that occasionally mingled with his magic and ignited something rawer than he'd ever known. If he were honest – which he wasn't, he was the god of lies, after all – this type of magic, uncontrollable and wont to leave nothing in its path, was not strictly his thing.

But it might just have to be.

… … …

Every single one of them had missed this.

Blood pumping, the Avengers moved as one unit, sprinted through the heavy snow of Sokovia. Shots came at them from all directions – someone was _really_ determined to keep them out of this HYDRA base – but their formation never broke.

Tony's suit collided roughly with the base's protective shield. "Shit." Steve knew his reply would be used against him forever, but it was out before he could stop it. Letting his shield fly, he grinned as it found its mark against the skulls of two foot soldiers. Behind him, Nat and Banner dipped in and out of his awareness, although Banner's battle techniques really gave Steve no choice but to pay attention. Bullets flew alongside his shield – and whatever was coming from Tony's armour, Steve never had wanted to ask – and their progress continued.

Nat never failed to chuckle internally at the surprised cries of HYDRA soldiers who discovered the hard way just how accurate the moniker 'God of Thunder' was. Lightning crackled against the cold ground, filled with every ounce of Thor's mounting stress.

The walls of the base came into view. Only a few feet separated the team from their target. But the air had started to move differently. Something whipped it about, sending pulses of it that hit people as if it were solid.

Clint let out a groan of frustration.

"You didn't see that coming?" a smug, bright face met his and winked before vanishing in a cloud of stretched light. So dazzled was he over this interloper that the blood soaking his shirt was the first indication that he was not alone. Nat called to him and he really did think he returned her shout.

"Does someone want to deal with that bunker?" she snapped to no one in particular, kneeling in the snow beside Clint and cringing as the same burst of warped light took Steve out. Banner complied rather nicely, destroying it in one fell swing of his fist.

"Thank you."

The pressure grew to tangible at the arrival of this assailant. Tony rolled his eyes almost painfully as Steve pointed out the incredibly obvious – 'we need to get inside'. Even the blasters on his suit seemed to protest at the presence of the energy field.

"I'm closing in," he replied, mentally crossing his fingers, "JARVIS, am I... closing in? Do you see a power source for that shield?"

"There's a pathway below the north tower," God, where would he be without JARVIS. Dead, probably, killed by being sarcastic at the wrong moment. Though he still couldn't rule that out.

Letting go of a blast, he hit his mark in one attempt and applauded himself as the shield collapsed, leaving him an open pathway to the base's interior. His team fought behind him, but his focus shifted fully onto the base's entrance. The air whipped around him as he shot past Strucker's defences, bullets flying and making chinks in his suit. He cursed them out, mortally outraged that they might even dare.

Nat's voice in his ear that Clint was hit brought panic to his throat. Pressing it down, he loosed a forceful breath and pushed on, battering through the brick into the base. Triumph bloomed quietly in his chest.

The room was eerily silent against the raging of battle outside. Early opposition taken care of, he stepped out of his suit and left JARVIS to keep watch, feeling around the walls at his instructions.

"Please be a secret door, please be a secret door." That childlike glee that drove his more out-there escapades flared to life. His hands danced over panels until he took a chance and pressed one down. To his eternal joy, a door flew open.

"Yay."

His joy was short-lived, however. Steve's voice in his ear – he would later argue to the point of genuine anger that this was not, in and of itself, the death of his joy, but Steve would never be sure – brought him out of fantasy land.

"We have a second enhanced. Female. Do not engage." The words were followed by a grunt of effort and chuckling, then, "Guys, I got Strucker."

"Yeah," Tony's voice was barely louder than a breath, "I got something bigger."

His stomach gurgled and he suddenly lost his certainty that he would keep his breakfast in his body. Spread out across the cavernous room was a collection, a museum, if you will, of his worst nightmare writ large. A leviathan, thankfully still, stared at him in open-mouthed malice. His own armour, his own creation, did much the same, its expression somehow tortured and hopeless.

The sceptre crowned it all. Panting, he felt his breath leave his lungs and an urge to touch its stone gripped his muscles with shocking speed. Shaking himself, he bristled as a sudden surge of understanding for their prisoner/fugitive last seen lounging over a very expensive sofa took hold. The stone almost called to him, desperate to be wielded.

"Thor, I got eyes on the prize."

The presence behind him made herself known too late to shake the twisting that invaded his mind.

… … …

Desolate was the only word for what he saw. Nothing but bodies littered the ground, both human and otherworldly, covered by layers of some faceless enemy's soldiers, writhing through the sky. No light met his eyes, only horror.

People cried out beyond. Begging and pleading for their lives.

Tony's knees buckled. At his feet, before he could collapse, he met Steve's eyes. Any colour had drained from them, leaving behind that helpless kind of pain that Tony had only seen a handful of times before. His lips were bloody.

Although the words didn't come from Steve's mouth, Tony head them, clear as day, in his ear. "You could have saved us." Death swept over his face, swift and final.

Head pounding, Tony screwed his eyes shut and groaned deeply as the picture cleared itself.

… … …

"Tony Stark," a girl spoke to him from the shadows in a thick voice that dripped with angry curiosity. He was drawn, hopelessly, to seek her out.

"Yeah," he gulped, desperate to keep the coolness of his voice. His hands shook. A rush of air and he was on his back, reeling from a blow to his knees. Laughter rippled in the air around him. His head pounded viciously, the memory of Steve's death still bitter in his mouth. For a moment, his vision spun and then two people stood over him, smiling smiles that did not reach their eyes.

"You killed our parents." There was very little emotion behind the girl's voice, but her eyes flickered with pain as she knelt beside him and watched him. Tony swore that red cloud of energy danced around her face. The boy, her brother, did and said nothing, only smirked.

And then they were gone. With another flicker of red and rippling air, they both vanished as if they had been pulled from the aether. Which, Tony mused without a trace of lucidity, they may well have been. As he shook his head in a desperate bid to regain his senses, he wrote them off as another hallucination, although it sat hugely uneasily in his mind.

Steve's voice cracked over his earpiece. His purpose there came flooding back and Tony leapt to his feet, brushing himself off and exhaling. Grabbing the sceptre from its pedestal and casting a last look around for any sign of genetically enhanced superhumans and suchlike, he made a hasty exit from the base, making it back to the ship just in time to hear Thor make a real mess of trying to comfort Banner.

"Not the screams of the dead, no," he began to stammer, Nat barely holding back a laugh as Bruce cradled his head in his hands.

The sceptre grew unnaturally hot under his grip. He placed it cautiously onto a rack in the centre of a research desk, setting up JARVIS to run a rudimentary scan of its components before they made it back to headquarters. He would ask Thor later if he minded him taking it for a bit.

… … …

"Incredible," Thanos chuckled deeply and shut off the display of his ship as it approached the edge of the planet the humans claimed for their own. Quill and his bounty hunters sat, draped, over a set of chairs playing a version of chess that left far more room for cheating than did the original, barely hearing a word of Thanos' musings. Until he slammed a balled fist against the console, Rocket and Groot were barely aware of his presence.

"What, my master," Maw's grovelling had well and truly grown from hilarious to sickening in the weeks they had been drifting through space, but the edge in his voice drew everyone's attention.

"The humans – Earth's mightiest heroes, no less – are collecting the stones. To keep them safe," this last part he said in a rare fit of mocking. "There are now five in one city. Four in one building. Three, I suspect, about the person of one traitor."

"Great, so that makes easy work for us," Quill replied, knocking Groot's king from the board when he wasn't looking.

"Not so," Thanos said, remarkably calmly, "no. The stones have claimed themselves a master and they will not leave him easily. It just so happens this is the sorcerer I want killed. So – your task is to steal the one that the Avengers do not have. Find it and retrieve it. Get back here quickly."

With raised eyebrows, Quill nodded his acceptance and lazily moved to don the questionable looking space suit he'd been provided with. Groot and Rocket by his side, Quill seated himself in a pod, turning over in his mind whether this latest heist might have, after all, been a terrible and ill-conceived idea that was going to get him killed.

No Stark Industries missiles in sight, Thanos smiled. The pod entered the atmosphere seamlessly and distinctly un-exploded, disappearing from view without so much as a drone strike.

In all his years of intergalactic genocide, Thanos had heard and seen many things. Almost nothing surprised him, least of all when it came to his ship, which he knew like the back of his hand. Imagine, then, the unending well of surprise that presented itself when, light years from the nearest planet of space-travelling species' capable of breathing in space, there was a knock at the door.

Sheer curiosity is a fatal thing in the showier of conquerors. Loki had never dealt with this problem – for he kept his conquest sights on planets he was physically on. Nor had even the Dark Elves or Ronan the Accuser. No one but Thanos had ever been bowled to the ground by Carol Danvers in an act preventable by merely not opening the door to her.

Spluttering with well-suppressed anger, Thanos demanded an explanation of her presence.

"An old – well, an old enemy came grovelling, told me about some thief. Apparently, he took something _real _important. Tracked him to Xandar. Met your daughter there, said you were up to something way worse than stealing from Kree." She leant casually against a high-backed chair, chewing her lip and watching him from beneath her brows.

Baffled, Thanos beheld her for a moment. Now, it is a sour pill to swallow that the whole fate of the universe may have been different if he had not been displaying his gauntlet prototype on the console at that exact moment in preparation for a meeting with maw.

Before he could move to respond, the woman hit him with a dizzying array of light that, as it pulsed through his body and swept his feet out from beneath him, he recognised with no small amount of concern. Her whole body burned with the energy of the space stone.

He was starting to stretch himself too thin – a man, even a Titan man, could only make so many enemies. The sorcerer could be dealt with later, as could the Avengers.

Stone-given powers could not be ignored for long.


	9. Chapter 9

"Come on, Tony!" Bruce was – shockingly – not one for sounding annoyed but Tony's attachment to his experiments at the expense of 'revels' was becoming ridiculous. Waving his hand in vague acknowledgement, Tony ushered Banner away and set JARVIS to run a set of trials under the Ultron project.

He still had no real idea of what infinity stones were. He was beginning to think no one did – the Avengers had more of their fair share of intellect but the real substance of the stones eluded them all. It was the vibrating power of the stone that drew him, fascinated him in a way that brought fear to his chest. This one, the mind stone, was a rogue one. It didn't so much as call as knew that someone would claim it, waiting patiently. What he did know, though, was that it could feel the presence of its brothers and the man they had claimed as their vessel.

The party downstairs sent delicate music floating up into the lab, classy and undoubtedly selected by Nat to remove some of the spectacle of Thor and his many mugs of Asgardian ale. The bar held a smooth, well-aged whiskey that had Tony Stark written all over it.

Smiling, he let the tests run and, taking a final look around his lab with anxious fondness, joined the party.

… … …

Agent Ford's father had laughed at her for wanting to be in the army. When she had left the army, he had laughed at the idea that she would join the CIA. She hadn't told him when she left the CIA for SHIELD, but she's sure he wouldn't be laughing if he saw what she did, staring into the half-darkness of a recently-fallen HYDRA base. Curled in the corner were two kids, barely older than high school age, muttering to each other in broken phrases of Sokovian.

Behind her, she heard similar mutterings in her own language of the careless destruction of the Avengers.

"They make the mess and it's our job to clean up," her supervisor grumbled, checking that the structure of the room was secure before moving over to what Agent Ford assumed were two unfortunate test subjects.

"We have two civilians in here, unarmed. Starting retrieval protocols," he motioned for Agent Ford to deal with the kids as he and their lieutenant pressed into the adjoining room. "Ford, take them back to the ship."

"Hi, uh, hello," she approached them uncomfortably, realising for the first time that she did not speak a word of Sokovian. The two kids eyed her suspiciously, Ford's eyes flickering with patches of red that distracted her from her targets.

"We speak English," the girl told her curtly, stretching herself out languidly. Her brother wore a placid smile, retraining his twitching limbs from demanding movement.

"Oh, thank god," Ford muttered to herself before extending a hand to the girl. "Let me help you up – I won't bite." She laughed brightly, and the twins accepted her without so much as word. Wrongness squirmed inside her at the thought of stealing these people from their homeland, but the words of Secretary Ross echoed in her mind – "he's made them into something else".

'Pietro and Wanda Maximoff' was all the information that Ford had been able to gather over the course of their return to New York. Stoic and silent, they spoke between themselves in sporadic bursts with little regard, it seemed, for their swift exit from their homeland.

… … …

"JARVIS, what the hell's going on here?" what Tony had returned to was not the world saviour and protector that the Ultron programmed had meant to be. Nor was it the destruction that Banner had feared. It was nothing. The sceptre had been bent out of shape with unnatural strength and its crown jewel plucked from its casing.

"Shit," Nat muttered, flicking a quick glance at Steve, who said nothing. By now, the energy patterns of the stones, raw and unrelenting, were a familiar presence that hung in that lab like storm clouds, a deadly reminder that they were working well above their collective pay grade.

"Ultron protocol testing paused, sir. Insufficient power source."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean. How did this happen?"

"The sceptre has been removed from its bracket, sir. I know longer have sufficient power to complete the trials."

"Yeah," Tony's irritation blazed, "I got that. Who took the sceptre?" Stomach squirming, he forced down the panic that rose to his chest and clenched his fists. This had Loki written all over it – the neat, calculated chaos of the room spoke of great, unfettered and unwound power.

Bruce had begun to bounce around the room, anxiously examining equipment and running two thousand simultaneous scenarios through his mind. Following him, Nat ran a soothing hand down his shoulder.

Resting his hammer on what no one bothered to tell him was a hyper-sensitive level for weighing out rare metals, Thor groaned wildly and, clapping Tony on the back, locked eyes with him and confirmed his fears.

"Sir?" JARVIS was not given to uncertainty but had clearly decided to make an exception for this echoing interruption to the heavy silence.

"What's up?"

"I have incoming reports of something entering the lower atmosphere. Additional reports of an unidentified threat in the Bleeker Street area. I cannot yet tell if they are related."

Rubbing his temple, Tony sent his glass clattering against the wall and growled curses. Steve rested a hand on his shoulder and offered a soothing glance.

"Ah, right," he pressed his hands into his eyes in a bid to rid himself of some of the stress built up there, "okay. Nat, you take Barton and Thor to Bleeker Street, Banner, you come with me and Rogers to check out discount Roswell."

"Got it," Nat jerked her head towards the door and left without waiting to see if she was being followed.

… … …

The first thought that Clint had upon reaching the end of Bleeker Street, was how astoundingly expensive it must be to keep a place here. He told Nat as such and she told him, in no uncertain terms but with a wicked smirk, to shut up and focus. _Just like Budapest_, he thought, nocking an arrow in preparation for whatever danger they would face, that would, invariably, be above his paygrade.

Thor lurked beside them, face dark and eyes heavy with exhaustion. The lightning in his veins reached for the presence of the stones, finding his brother's magic there, mingling under the thumb of rawer power.

"Is it him?" Nat asked, waiting for his replying nod in spite of her growing certainty.

"How bad?" having battled him once, Clint was sure he didn't want the answer.

"Very bad," Thor said, "his magic is mixing with the stones. I don't think he knows it. Or, at least, I don't think he meant to do it."

The street had warped into thick walls of stone, a barrier against the outside world carved from buildings and roads. Blinding flashes of green light attacked the façade of a large sandstone building that, to either the untrained or highly trained eye, appeared to fight back. A globe structure encased in brass crowned it, following its assailant as he moved in punching bursts. After a few minutes of vicious but ineffective attacks, the blasts died away.

"We've seen what he can do when he _does_ know what he's doing," Nat huffed, dragging them all into a narrow alley to gather their thoughts, "Thor, you once said he is beyond reason."

"He is, or, he was. But I didn't know then what the stones could do." Thor's face blanched, the shadows of failure dancing over his features. Loki had never needed protection, not really and certainly not from anyone but himself, but that had never stopped a thousand year old sense of brotherly responsibility weighing on Thor. All godly strength fled his body as he took in the scene that Loki had created.

Too quickly, the blasting resumed.

"What is that place?" Clint grunted as he loosed three pyrotech arrows in the direction of the assault, grinning at the sound of them striking their mark.

"Heimdall, I need your Sight." Thor let a white light flow over his body, his pupils taking on a yellow hue. His muscles relaxed near to the point of collapse and, as Nat and Clint jabbed curiously at his physical body, he found himself inside the Sanctum.

It may as well have been taken straight out of one of the ancient libraries on Asgard. Or a Pottery Barn catalogue in the 'vintage' section. Either way, the tomes of spells and forbidden knowledge lining the walls, the dark mahogany, the single enormous skylight all have the impression of a place steeped in power. And his brother was attacking it.

Turning, he scanned what appeared to be a study space and, dismissing the artefacts that he would dearly like to learned more about, set his sights on a sweeping set of stairs, at the top of which stood a tall, utterly graceful woman in robes that, whilst not otherworldly, did not come from anywhere that he recognised.

The pressure in his head reached fever pitch as Heimdall's Sight began to withdraw. As he was pulled back into his body, he caught sight of the medallion about the woman's neck, a sickly green light betraying its contents as he vanished from the room. Back in his own body, Thor groaned at the ache behind his eyes.

"What's going on?" Nat asked, the urgency on her face growing by the second.

"They're protecting a stone in there. There's-there's a woman, she-"

"Okay," Clint interrupted Thor's stammering, "so, what do we do?"

"We go in." Nat gave the instruction, warming up to her next suggestion. "Thor, we have to get in there. We need to distract him. Can you do that?"

"He's my brother. Of course."

Lifting his hammer, shuddering as lightning gathered in its head, he slammed it against the ground. Concrete peeled back along a wide track as celestial energy ripped through the sidewalk, reaching Loki before he could recognise its source. It flipped him backward, and Thor took the split second that his brother groaned on his back to move. Nat and Clint, nodding to each other, slipped inside the Sanctum.

The Ancient One met them at the door, a knowing smile on her face.

… … …

Stark's arrogance would be his downfall. From the blocks away, Wanda had caught sight of the Avenger's tower, gazing out over the city, a glaring symbol of the intimidation their very existence brought to ordinary people. Getting inside had been stunningly easy – the pliable minds of humans gave Wanda an unobstructed path to the elevator, which didn't protest under her willing it to take them to the private quarters of the owner.

The memories of the ruined base, crumbling and cold and abandoned, still fresh in their minds, the lavish smoothness of Tony's apartment brought fresh hatred. Everything was polished, nothing out of place. Exactly as _he_ wanted it.

"He's not here," Wanda said after a moment, staring off into the far distance. Pietro joined her from the stairs in seconds. He agreed, sensing no movement nor presence in these ever so hallowed halls. Light streamed in, bathing the room in a beautiful glow, such that neither of them had known for months.

"Where do we go from here?" Pietro asked, watching the street below them.

"Out there," she replied, not focusing on anything in particular. "Where there's chaos, we'll find him."

"It's America," Pietro mused as they once again bent the elevator to their will to take them down into the street, "everywhere is chaos." Wanda laughed and nodded. A large man with a scowling face bumped into her from behind, sending her delicate frame tumbling forward into the side of the tower. Chuckling, he warned her to be more careful next time.

With a growl, she revelled in the power that flowed through her body, the openness of her mind, as she willed the man into the road, just shy of being run down by a cab. He leapt onto the sidewalk, cursing and looking around wildly, familiar terror of his own mortality washing over his face. Wanda smirked but Pietro scolded her.

"You can't do that here!"

"Why not? He can act how he wants. So can I." She didn't wait for a reply, rather she inclined her head towards the sky above Bleeker Street, where power swirled freely, unencumbered by human interference. So far.

… … …

Earth repelled Quill in a way that shocked some primal part of him. It wasn't that it was particularly awful – well, it was, but its inhabitants were a bit tetchy about this fact – it was just _boring_. Missouri might have been his first home, but it wasn't his true place in the universe. The pod deposited them on a small patch of grass, a welcome haven of nature in an otherwise concrete nightmare of skyscrapers and yellow taxis.

Stepping from the pod – not a new experience for any of them, but the staleness of the air was something they would never get over – Quill cast his gaze around and fixed his eyes on something just out of Groot and Rocket's view.

"So, what now?" Rocket snapped, already gripping his gun in anticipation.

"We go there," Quill replied, indicating the pulsating air in the distance, an increasing amount of debris amassing in the clouds. A ripple of excitement ran through the group, swiftly followed by fiery heat exploding clumps of dirt behind them. The clattering of metal against the ground served nothing to drown out the sound of one very exasperated voice, chastising them as if they were naughty children.

"I don't care what you're doing, just take it somewhere I don't have to deal with it."

Many people had felt the gut-deep discomfort that came with coming face to face with Tony Stark. Suave annoyance came off him in waves (and had the tendency to cause the same in his friends).

But very few had returned to tell the tale of facing down Iron Man.


End file.
